Well, I am no expert in the field to talk about how we should communicate with each other. That being said, I recently came across a talk given by a man who was unable to interact with others for more than a decade! Yes, that’s true. He had developed a brain infection at the age of 12, which prevented him from all means of communication. He was like a living body and nothing else, taken as an infant who is just to be fed. I am not going to go into the details of his story, as I will provide you with the link so that you can listen to his whole narrative in his own words. I just want to let you know my feelings and what we all can learn from his story. What I took away from the talk was the importance of communicating with people. You know, hearing his tale of being unable to express feelings, emotions or simply talking to other people as a sign of a normal human being, left me speechless. It hit me so much so that I have taken a pledge that next time I communicate with someone, specially with my loved ones I will think twice before I utter words out of my mouth. I will not say something, which in normal circumstances would look inappropriate or unkind, words that could hurt them. You know, “words,” which often times we take them so easily for granted could shatter someone’s life and at the same time build them. It could destroy years of relationship or it could be the basis of the beginning of a new one. Therefore, I will use my words wisely! Would you?

Don’t judge someone. Everyone has the right to have opposite opinions and perceptions. Once you develop this, only then you can understand the others’ point of views. So stop judging!

Be kind.

If you want to be happy, be kind. That is my philosophy of achieving true happiness. Once you have formed that deep tenderness in your heart, you would realize true sense of joy. So be kind to everyone, even your enemies for that matter.

Be humorous.

Humor is something which is very important to have. Being funny brings smile and laughter to other people. When you bring laughter in other peoples’ lives, you bring laughter in your life. So try and be amusing and in a good way!

Be hardworking.

If you have got something to achieve, an aim, an object, give your best shot! Once you give your 100%, even if you fail, which is very unlikely, you would still be proud of yourself.

Be playful.

Don’t take everything seriously! There is more to life than that! Be like a kid and enjoy life. Do adventures, experience things, live life!

Be creative.

See problems in a different way. You don’t have to take them as problems. Take them as challenges. And there are always different solutions to a problem. So bring that creativity into your life and think differently.

Be humble.

Admit your mistakes and realize that you are just a human being. If you have done something wrong, apologize. Don’t be rude or arrogant.

Recently I read an article of time.com. The article lists some of Stephen Hawking’s sayings on various topics, including disability, priorities, free will, humor, his IQ, on what he thinks all day and etc. But the one that struck me was his approach on getting stuck on a problem.

This is what he says on hitting roadblocks:

“It’s not good getting furious if you get stuck. What I do is keep thinking about the problem but work on something else. Sometimes it is years before I see the way forward. In the case of information loss and black holes, it was 29 years.”

If you reflect on his saying, which generally talks about what to do when stuck in a situation or a problem, he has given us a beautiful piece of advice. What he has tried to tell us is, that when you are glued to an obstacle and you are constantly trying to get rid of it but you can’t, it is wise to give it a rest. By rest, he means, putting the problem away and getting on with other activities. Eventually with the problem still at the back of your mind, you will come up with a solution. This may take few years or decades even but you will find the answer.

This is exactly what the creativity process says as well. One of the important things to do in order to be more creative is what Stephen Hawking has already said, keeping the problem at the back of your mind and working on something else. I have read many books and articles on how to be creative, the way to creativity and all and generally all those highlight the same thing.

This was my favorite of Stephen Hawking’s quotes. Which one is yours? Below is the link of Mr Hawking’s 12 quotes, please go through it and let me know in the comments, the one that you like and why.

When you look at your surroundings and really ponder over it, you would come up with a conclusion that of all the things, the most unpredictable, uncertain, is life itself. You never know if you are going to stay alive the next year or the next month or the next day, so and so that you can’t be certain about your chances of being alive the next very moment! A sudden car accident, an unanticipated heart attack or an unexpected fall on the head might be the cause of your death. We never exactly know what might happen. Although, we can predict what we are going to do the next day or week, we might have plans for the next year but those are just our forethoughts, in reality we are as uncertain as anyone could be. Although, not be mistaken, I am a big supporter of future planning, I think its very necessary that we plan ahead of whatever we have in mind and not include ourselves in the, “Lets see what happens” category of people. But, just to give you an idea of the uncertainty of life, according to a statistics, approximately 200,000 athletes die of sudden deaths and in the US, two thirds occur in football and basketball. I am talking about the healthiest of our populations here. Sudden cardiac death in the US (population 300 million) is estimated to occur 180,000 – 250,000 times per year.

So if life is so unpredictable, so unforeseeable, what to do about it?

Find your passion.

What is that one thing that you think you are made for and do it! Don’t set out to do something that you are not passionate about. Find something to which you can say out loud, “WOW! This is what I want to do!” If it’s really hard for you to find that thing, keep on working your butt off until you have found it. Once you have discovered that passion, follow it and be master in it. You see, if you are not doing what you would have liked to do, then you are not living, really. To me and to many others, you are dead already. So set out for what you always wanted to do and give your whole time and energy to it. Life is much more than a 9-5 job!

Be kind.

Don’t hold grudges against anyone. If you have got a situation where it is very difficult for you to forgive someone, come up with a slightest of an excuse and forgive him/her. Try to be kind and affectionate to everyone. And this goes especially to your family-parents, siblings and close friends. Life is too short to be spent resenting someone. I am going to tell you a short story of one of my friends. This friend of mine didn’t have the greatest of relationships with his father. He had spent most of his life hating him; from the day he was a teenage to his adolescents. Reason? He thought his father was being unkind and mean to him. Until recently when one day, he got the news of his death. Oh boy, you wouldn’t want to see such a sight, he cried and cried until his eyes were swollen and his tears were dried up. During the whole time, he was uttering but one thing, “I wish I had made up with him!”

Learn from your mistakes.

As human beings, we are bound to make mistakes and blunders, sometimes we may repeat them, but the sensible thing to do is to learn from them. Take a lesson from your faults and promise yourself not to repeat them again. If you have fought with someone and it is your fault, go and apologize! Don’t wait for the right moment to come along, that is not ever going to happen. You have to make the move and it is better there and then. And please, please! Don’t beat yourself up. Learn from your failures and move on.

Have fun!

In the end, life is too short and too unpredictable to be serious all the time. It is wise to have fun and enjoy every moment of it. Go out, have fun, sit on rides, go to adventures, do things, which you were always scared to do. This is life and our job is to have fun!

I recently came across an article, which is written, on Pope Francis’ leadership style. I personally found it intriguing and couldn’t help but share with you. The Forbes article, written by Carmine Gallo talks about what makes Francis an inspiring, uplifting, and an encouraging figure. If anyone wants people to listen to him or her and aspires to be an inspiration to others, the following script is a must read.

As you know about the war that is going on in Syria, which has prompted thousands of people to leave their country, in order to survive for their lives. Recently I came across an interview of a Syrian mother who is part of the many refugees stuck in the borders between Serbia and Hungary. These refugees who are on high-rise, are trying to reach Germany to start a new life but are being held back by the authorities in Hungary. “Anyone passing its borders illegally, is to face jail or sent back to their country”, are the orders from the Hungarian police. Consequently, for more than a week, they have been living, literally, in the middle of the road.

Ms. AlSayed, the Syrian mother, says that she has been travelling for 10 days with her 6 year old daughter, Alma, passing through Turkey and Greece. She, along with hundreds of other fugitives have a simple demand that they be allowed to pass through the Hungarian border, from where they can go to Germany where they see a bright future for themselves. Of course, that seems far away from happening.

In the interview, the mother makes an appeal to the authorities that if they (the Hungarian officials) don’t want to allow them to pass through its territory, she is ready to hand over her daughter to them on a condition that, that she will be sent to Germany or any other safer place. She says in a determined tone that for the sake of her child’s safety, she is ready to be separated from her. In her very own words, “Take my kid (pointing to her child) and put her in Germany or any other safer place.” She states that she doesn’t want a peaceful life for herself, as is her right to do so but for her daughter.

After watching her interview, it lead me thinking, “Where has humanity come down to? Since when people who are just like you and me, have had to demand for a life where they can have a guarantee that there isn’t going to be an explosion in the next hour or the next day? Has the world crumbled so much that the assurance of granting a war-free life has become something of an obscure? Where are the authorities now that label themselves as the so-called guardians of human rights?

I want to bring into the discussion now, an occurence that took place last week, in Irving, Texas, the Ahmed-clock incident. For those of you who don’t know about it, it went like this. A 14-year-old boy, Ahmed Mohamed went to school on Monday of the last week to show his teacher his experimental product, which he had made at home. Teacher upon seeing the product mistook it for a bomb. And as a result, the school officials notified the police and Ahmed was taken in to custody. He was interrogated for about one and a half hour before the police were convinced that it was a clock and not a bomb and he was discharged. The incident went viral in the media and many high profile people showed their support to Ahmed. Those prominent people included Mr. Obama, Mark Zuckerberg and Mrs. Clinton.

To be honest, I welcome Mr. Obama’s step of addressing the boy and praising him for his experimental product and inviting him to the white house. I also would like to praise Mr. Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook and Mrs. Clinton here, who also showed their support to the 14-year-old kid. I think it was much needed for such esteemed people to show their encouragement to the boy and I hope they continue to do so in the future as well.

But I also have some questions here that I want to put forward. Why are we so quiet on a similar situation, wait a minute, calling it a similar situation would not be fair to the 14 millions of innocent kids who are suffering from wars and for years now, in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. The war, which is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan for more than a decade now and 5 years since it has started in Syria, millions and millions of children have suffered and who are still suffering to this very day. What is their fault for the miserable life that we have given to them? Sure they had nothing to do with the war, then why are they being tormented, tortured and brutalized every second of every minute and every minute of every hour and every hour of every day?

In the end, I just want to say this, “Lets unite in helping eradicate terrorism from its roots, lets join our hands in helping those millions of children who are living in misery, lets collaborate in helping those refugees who just wants to live in peace and has nothing to do with war, lets together, make a world where living in harmony is not something of an obscure, but a reality.

I couldn’t watch the final of the US OPEN because I live in Dubai and obviously the timings vary between the two countries. To give you an idea, 9pm of Newyork means 1am of Dubai. Obviously I waited until 1 for the match to start and 1 hour more because there was a delay due to the weather. As there was no prospect of the match getting under way soon, I slept. Upon waking up, without doing anything, still in bed, I opened up the tennis.com website on my iPhone to see the result. As the page appeared, my eyes were wide open at seeing the face of Djokovic with the trophy. Obviously as you might know by now, I am a Roger fan. So it hurt me obviously because I had my heart for Federer to win the trophy. But Roger losing was one thing that saddened me but more so was the belief that I had in him to clinch the trophy of a Grand Slam this time. It wasn’t just a belief but my sixth sense that constantly kept telling me that he would surely win this one, about which I have written in my previous blog. I had such a strong gut feeling after his win against Isner that I had already started celebrating way before the quarterfinals has begun. But that wasn’t to be. So this loss has obviously saddened and angered me, so much so that I didn’t feel like talking much that day. I didn’t feel like watching highlights right away, as I knew the result .It was a disappointment, no doubt. So at the end of that day, when the exasperation and sorrow had lessened a bit, I had the courage to watch the highlights. I even watched the presentation trophy afterwards, talk about courage! As I had my eyes and ears fixed to Roger’s reaction and his talk at the ceremony, to be honest it gave me such a comfort that no Roger fan or journalist could have given. His short announcement “ I will see you guys next year” and the way he said it, reassuring us that he was more than ever determined, was more than enough to give me a huge relief. That is why I along with millions of my comrades been following him from years and will continue to do so till the day he says goodbye to the sport.